Vidya Balan has been characterized as the girl-next-door since she entered the industry. She’s always been the sweet, mature woman you’d want your parents to see you bring home. However, we also know she’s proven her versatility as an actress. In Abhishek Choubey’s directorial debut Ishqiya, Vidya Balan dons the role of a woman who’s well aware of her power over men.
Playing this new role of a seductress opposite two thugs, Naseerudin Shah and Arshad Warsi, has been a big step out of her comfort zone. Recently, they shot the song ‘Ibn Batuta’ where the three of them, completely drunk, dance together. Vidya explained how she had to pretend to be intoxicated and uninhibited as she swayed to Vishal Bharadwaj’s music. However, since the song did not fit in with the storyline, it will be used with the credits.
Even more risque, she has shot a scene where her character sucks Arshad Warsi’s thumb.
“Fortunately, Arshad is a friend. We’ve gotten along well from the time we did Lage Raho Munna Bhai together. I don’t know if I’d have been able to do a scene like putting my co-star’s finger in the mouth with someone else. That gesture of sucking Arshad’s thumb was so raunchy and sexy, so not me, I couldn’t connect with it all,” she said.
“In Ishqiya, everything – from the way I wore my sari to the way I looked at men – was alien to me. The role exposed me to a new way of interpreting a liberated woman. My character in Ishqiya may not know about feminism. But she’s truly liberated.”
The voluptuous woman who ensnares two men with wily charms isn’t Vidya Balan. That’s her character in Ishqiya, releasing soon.
